Jesse Mullighan (00:00):
It's time for Tech Tuesday. Daniel Watson is the head of Vertech IT Services. He joins me now. Hey there, Dan.
Daniel Watson (00:07):
Good. Hey, how you doing Ju?
Jesse Mullighan (00:07):
I feel like you might have good news for me. I feel like my iPhone friends are going to stop making fun of me because Apple's got a big announcement.
Daniel Watson (00:17):
Oh, yes, yes. So from later on in 2024, so Apple has agreed to adopt the RCS messaging standard. [00:00:30] So if you're not aware, you are, but
Jesse Mullighan (00:35):
I'm not really, all I know is that my Apple friends make fun of me from not being part of the message groups.
Daniel Watson (00:40):
Yeah, yeah. Because if you're in an iPhone, iPhone world, you can text message amongst each other with iMessage and you get all sorts of extra features and that kind of stuff. In the same way that if you're in an Android phone, Google phone based, you often will have lots of additional features that you're doing amongst each other. But the [00:01:00] two worlds have been not playing nice with each other. There is an open standard that Google uses rather than the proprietary standard that Apple uses. Right. And the RCS stands for Rich Communication Services. Oh yeah. So it's the kind of thing that, so if I send an Apple owner a video, then the quality through the text message service gets dumbed down, harsh out, or it just does not work [00:01:30] nicely. They don't play well together. You can't use the same kind of emojis or extra stuff that you'd like to do. And also on the Apple side of things, you show up as a green message rather than the standard blue. And this there's
Jesse Mullighan (01:46):
Discrimination.
Daniel Watson (01:48):
Yes, there's discrimination definitely involved in there. I've heard of instances where people who may be trying to, I'm trying not to say hook [00:02:00] up, but dating,
Jesse Mullighan (02:03):
You've heard young person, you've heard people who won't date people who don't have iPhones.
Daniel Watson (02:08):
Yes, yes. Where the conversation pretty much stops as soon as they get that first message and they realize that the other person doesn't
Jesse Mullighan (02:16):
Have an iPhone, I wouldn't want to hook up with someone who is that shallow Daniel.
Daniel Watson (02:21):
I think that's a fair enough point. And there's probably a good parenting moment involved in that. Yeah.
Jesse Mullighan (02:26):
Although I say that with the confidence, that's the reason I say that with the confidence of someone [00:02:30] who's happily married. If you asked me when I was single, I might feel differently.
Daniel Watson (02:34):
I know, but it's 1400 bucks for an iPhone. So I mean, come on, kids put your money to better use. It's a minor thing, but it's great that they're actually agreeing to do this now because just it would be like, say you have a Sony portable decked phone at home that you use to call people with, but it doesn't interate with somebody who's a Panasonic [00:03:00] decked portable phone at their house. It's kind of ridiculous. So anyway, that's all good, and I'm glad that it's happening. There'll probably still be that discriminatory. They'll find ways to do it because a lot of time people are buying iPhones for the status symbol. Right.
Jesse Mullighan (03:16):
So that's that type. Another reason too, I think least of someone if they're buying an iPhone to try and impress people. Speaking of which Christmas is coming up, and you had a very popular session last year giving us some ideas [00:03:30] for techie presents. Any ideas this year?
Daniel Watson (03:33):
Yes, and it's all based around needs. So I don't know about you, but I've got a wonderful daughter who sends me videos from time to time. Unfortunately, most of them are visually unwatchable because they move the camera around the phone camera too much. You can't focus on anything. They're just zipping around from place to place. So there is a great little tool. I've had a playoff, one of them, I've seen people use these, [00:04:00] they're called DJI Osmos, and it's a little foldable tool about the size of a torch that unfolds out and is a gimbal stabilizer. And Itec clips stabilize it and you clip your phone into it and it's got a little thumb controller that you can use for zooming in and zooming out. You can tell it to hold position on a particular object and focus on that. And it smooths out the shakiness of the hands. Makes [00:04:30] it easy for doing selfies. It's got a little inbuilt tripod. So if you're doing some content creation, there's lots of people are getting into these days. It's a great little, relatively inexpensive, you're talking around the region of less than 250 bucks for a tool that will, you'll get a lot of use out it. So that's the DJI Osmo.
Jesse Mullighan (04:53):
And does it work just the same way steady cams do in broadcasting? If you bump it just kind of readjusts [00:05:00] itself
Daniel Watson (05:01):
Similar, it's probably, I'm sure in broadcasting they would like to say hell no. There's a reason why you've got to spend a lot more money on something more. But for the average consumer, this does a lot of the same kind of thing and you'll get much better home videos. Right.
Jesse Mullighan (05:20):
Thank you. Great suggestion. Anything else?
Daniel Watson (05:23):
Yes, another one. Now have you got children where they play games on their computer or what have you and they're wearing [00:05:30] headphones and you find yourself getting a bit irate because in order to capture your attention, you have to shout incredibly loud or start throwing things.
Jesse Mullighan (05:39):
We have our own subtle problems in our house, but sometimes it does involve children wearing headphones. Yes.
Daniel Watson (05:46):
Yes. Okay.
Jesse Mullighan (05:47):
One of our girls reckons she can't work because of the noise in the house. Can't do homework's, the noise in the house. So she puts headphones on. So we are considering noise canceling headphones for her [00:06:00] at some stage. But yes, Carol, not a great
Daniel Watson (06:01):
Idea. I'm thinking from the parental perspective of once they've got those headphones on, it's like you can't just quickly get their attention. You've actually got to move all the way down the house or whatever and try and get ahold of 'em. But so a solution that we've found for this is that you can get these as a Sony NS seven wireless wearable TV speaker. Often people are watching their own shows on their laptops and if they've got headphones in and that kind of stuff, that's great. You can't [00:06:30] hear them, unfortunately, they can't hear you. These kind of things look like a, it's kind of a next speaker,
Jesse Mullighan (06:38):
So
Daniel Watson (06:38):
It sits on your shoulders. Looks a bit like the
Jesse Mullighan (06:40):
Portable pillows that you take onto the plane. It's just not quite so puffy.
Daniel Watson (06:44):
Yeah, they're a bit more subtle. We've got one at home and actually we can be watching our TV show and our other daughter can be playing games on the computer or watching narrow shows with the sound turn really down so it doesn't bother us. They can still hear it and then we can actually [00:07:00] still have conversations from time to time, which is quite nice.
Jesse Mullighan (07:03):
That is wicked. Yeah.
Daniel Watson (07:05):
Gosh, yeah. The sound quality is also really good too for just, it throws it up and the full surround sound.
Jesse Mullighan (07:12):
But if I'm a few meters away, I can't hear it. No. Dang, you're
Daniel Watson (07:17):
The man. That's a little Tom. Well try to be the next item I've got for you, mate. Now, I resisted this for a long, long time until my wife's big special birthday came [00:07:30] up and I thought I'd surprise with this is, and it's a bit more expensive. It's a Sony, sorry, Samsung Frame TV range. What's special about them being TVs? It's just that they're really slim line. They have a matte finish on them and they've got really, they can work well in pretty much high sun as well. And we've got one of ours, those in the bedroom now so that I can still go to bed early. I can still cuddle up and fall asleep while the wife watches it, watches her shows.
Jesse Mullighan (08:00):
[00:08:00] And when it's not on, it doesn't look like a big blank box on your wall. You can set it to art,
Daniel Watson (08:06):
Display art, yes, indeed. Or family photos or what have you. And it's actually reasonably priced. TVs are getting cheaper and cheaper. That's just a really cool tool and makes her very happy, which what it's all about.
Jesse Mullighan (08:21):
Great. Dan, you're an inspiration. Thank you so much. Some fantastic gift ideas there. [00:08:30] And if you needing those details. Again, this will go live on the website in a few minutes so you can listen back, write it down. But for now, Dan Watson Vertek IT Services. Thank you for your service to New Zealand
Daniel Watson (08:44):
Zealand. Oh yes. And on that point, Jesse, we're coming into a very dry summer. I just went out and did some wildfire training with the foreign emergency in NZ and the very next day we had our first wildfire call out in a bush block in cow Copper. Copper. If you guys are lighting [00:09:00] fires and having a bit of a sing song at night around them or whatever you're doing, please make sure you're fully extinguish them with water and make your fire pit sit on mineral earth rather than maybe the duff layer or the hummus that sits underneath the trees. That was exciting, but we'd rather not have to deal with a whole bunch of flames out there.
Jesse Mullighan (09:21):
You're getting its new territory with mineral earth.
Daniel Watson (09:24):
It's just the phrase, it's when you dig down and you scraped out so you're not sitting on [00:09:30] perhaps the kind of organic layer that sits on the ground in most environments.
Jesse Mullighan (09:36):
Well, there was that kind of stuff. There was a time for humanity when fire was technology, Dan. So I'll allow it. Happy to spread that message for you today. Thanks so much for your time.
Daniel Watson (09:47):
Good stuff mate. Take care.
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